Decode
by Anatidaephobia81
Summary: [SasuSaku]Happy Valentines Day! This is my gift to you my Readers! Sakura gives it one last try, will Sasuke find her in time, or will he be too late? Please review, Flamers are welcomed and accpeted!


Decode 

Haruno Sakura sat on a stool at the Ichiraku Ramen stand. Her steaming ramen sitting before her, taking a bite of ramen, she raked her brain.

_How should I do it?_

Nineteen-year-old Sakura could only stare into her ramen as she zoned out, her thoughts consuming her.

"Hello? Sak, you there?"

But, leave it to Naruto to interrupt her thoughts. She looked over to him; he had already eaten his third bowl and was ready to order his fourth. Not knowing why he was staring at her, she lifted her eyebrow. He chuckled at her for a moment before saying, "Do you want me to buy you another bowl?"

She looked down at her now empty bowl and realized that she had eaten her bowl of ramen and had not even noticed it.

"Sure Naruto, sorry if I zoned out, I just have a lot on my mind." She smiled at him to try and quell his questioning gaze.

Luckily, he just shrugged and ordered two chicken ramen.

"So, what could be so important that you just zone out? Seriously, it always seems as if something is on your mind recently."

She sighed; she knew that question would come up sooner or later. Looking down at her hands she tried to figure out a way to tell him. She looked up at him; his larger hand had enclosed itself over hers. She smiled weakly before looking down at their hands. She couldn't keep anything from Naruto; the two of them were just too close.

"Is it about the Teme, or Valentines day?" Naruto questioned.

_Why the hell does he have to know everything about me?_

"Hehe, well you see…" her words came out fumbled and she nervously bit her bottom lip.

"Is it both?"

Once again Naruto was right on target. He could tell by the way that she looked up at him with wide eyes and bit her bottom lip harder. He smiled at her, even though it had been nearly three years since they had brought Sasuke back, she was still in love with him. He put his other hand, his right hand on her cheek and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She bit her bottom lip, and leaned into his hand. How could she tell Naruto, her self-proclaimed brother, that she didn't know how to tell Sasuke that she still loved him? Seriously, she was supposed to be over him! She still cannot love him! She should be worrying over the fanboys that would stalk her on Valentines Day, not how she was going to tell the one guy that she had loved for nearly seven years that she loved him!

"I just…I don't know how to tell him that…" she couldn't say it.

"That you still love him?" right on target again Naruto.

She looked him in they eyes, silently pleading with him to understand her. She knew that he wanted her to move on and try to get a relationship with somebody. Don't get Naruto wrong, he was Sasuke's best friend/brother but, Sakura was his sister and she deserved to have a man in her life.

And if Sasuke was not going to be that man, than Sakura should move on and find somebody else.

They were ninja, and most Shinobi were not expected to live past thirty years old. Next month, Sakura was going to turn twenty and he didn't want her to waste away her life looking for a man that was not going to love her the way that she deserved to be loved. Plus, Sasuke never really showed any interest in her and Naruto did not want Sasuke to use Sakura for her strength to be a mother of his children. The thought of Sasuke using her just as a tool had always freaked him out.

Naruto just hoped that Sasuke would never do that to her or any other girl.

Naruto smiled at her, "You know that no matter what you do I would always support you. Don't worry, just think of what way you want to tell him, and tell him. It is that simple, plus, you have two days to tell him."

Sakura looked down at the ramen in front of her, thinking of a way of telling him while she ate.

Looking at Naruto gobble down his ramen, she smiled. At least he had a person that was willing to spend their Valentines with him.

She mindlessly ate her ramen, looking around her. Staring at the sigh with all of the prices of ramen, a thought hit her.

"That's it!" she exclaimed, scaring Naruto with her outburst.

"What is 'it'?" he asked, using a napkin to wipe off some of the ramen he spilt on his shirt.

His reply was Sakura running out of the ramen stand towards her apartment. He looked over at her empty bowl and sighed; that girl was too weird at times. Paying the waitress, he walked out and made his way to his apartment to see his girlfriend of four months, Hyuuga Hinata.

* * *

Sitting at her desk, Sakura hastily went to work on her idea. If what she were going to do would work, she would hopefully be able to tell Sasuke that she still loved him without him even knowing!

Although, if her plan goes the way that she thinks that it will, she would do something that she thought that she would never do…

Give up on Sasuke.

But, there is a slight chance that he would understand her note, and if he did and he felt the same, then, maybe. Just maybe she could have a relationship with the love of her life.

"Just like the flip of a coin, this could go either way."

As she wrote, Sakura could only wonder what Sasuke was doing…

* * *

Uchiha Sasuke sat up he couldn't get any rest.

He knew what day would be coming up soon, and he really didn't like it.

Valentine Day.

In the course of the next two days, the front of his house would get covered by presents, candy, cakes, cards, anything.

Last year, Ami the president of his fanclub, had decided to give him some of her lingerie. Seriously, what the hell was she thinking he was going to do with it? Sniff it? Wear it? That was just so stupid!

Can't they just tell that he doesn't even like them? Geez, they need to get a brain!

He looked around his room; the only color in it was the huge painting of the Uchiha emblem above his bed, the paper fans hanging from his ceiling, and the pictures that he kept from his time in team seven.

He had a total of 27 pictures with him, Naruto, Kakashi, the rookie nine, Tsunade; Kabuto-he had been Sasuke's only friend in sound, and Sakura. All of theses pictures were around his room, and he had plenty more around his house.

Although, he had barely any pictures of Sakura.

He looked at the picture he kept on his nightstand, the first picture of team seven. The three of them had changed ever since then, he had left for sound and became a labeled traitor, Naruto had become a pervert, and Sakura…

He thinks that she moved on.

Much to his disappointment.

* * *

Sakura looked down at the envelope, inside of the plain white envelope was her heart and soul.

She smiled, hopefully Sasuke wouldn't throw away her note, she tried her best to not make it look like it was for Valentines day…but with him you never really knew.

He would probably just throw it out, and in that case, she would move on without looking back.

Dropping the letter into his empty mailbox, she ran back to Naruto's apartment hoping that he would keep her company.

* * *

Reaching his apartment, she knocked, once, twice, thr-

Hinata opened the door.

"Um, hey Hinata, is Naruto here?"

Hinata smiled and said, "He just got into the shower about 5 minutes ago, you can come in if you want and wait for him."

Sakura smiled and nodded, taking off her shoes and sitting on the couch across from Hinata smiled and started a conversation with the shy Hyuuga heiress, her only thought being Sasuke's reaction.

* * *

Sasuke looked outside his window, he had seen when Sakura laid the letter in his mailbox and ran off. He was busy trying to figure out what it was, part of him hoping that it was a Valentines letter, the other part, hoping that it wasn't.

He had already used up four garbage bags throwing away gifts from his 'secret admirers'. Looking both ways, he didn't want another fangirl to jump out and attack him with chocolates again that was seriously scary. He gathered her letter from his mailbox and ran back into his house, hoping that none of his crazy fangirls had seen him; they would stand outside of his house and yell for him until he yelled for them to leave…stupid fangirls.

Sitting down on his bed, he opened the envelope, inside was only one page.

He couldn't really believe how nervous he was being abou this, it was just a letter from Sakura. Sakura was Sakura. There was no need for him to be worried about this.

Opening the letter, he found that all it had were a bunch of numbers on it, a code? Sakura gave him a code.

He looked down at his letter again,

**21.19.**

**9. 1215225. 251521. **

**96. 251521. 1215225. 135. 201515. 208514. 161251195. 135520. 135. 120. 2085. **

**251438. 120. 597820. 16. 13. 1514. 2211251420914519. 4125. **

**9. 113. 7159147. 2015. 1315225. 1514. 96. 9. 415. 141520. 1955. 251521. **

**8.19.**

How the hell was he supposed to figure this out? He didn't know the first thing about this code. How the hell did she think he was going to decode it?

Setting the paper on his nightstand he went to his bathroom to take his shower, the code still in his head.

* * *

"So tell me again, Sak, how are you sure that he will be able to decode it?"

Sakura smiled at Naruto, "I'm not," Naruto stared at her with a questioning expression, "And Then why did you give it to him?"

Sakura smiled and let a small giggle come from her mouth at Naruto's face, "If he doesn't know me well enough to know that I code my things like that, then he wont be able to find me, and I will move on. If he likes me, or love me in any way, he will be able to figure it out and find me, that's all I want from him."

Naruto looked at Sakura, shocked at her confession, he had known that she was in love with Sasuke, and yet she was willing to give up on him and move on him. He smiled at her and grasped her hand in his, a friendly gesture he had gotten over the years of watching her break down and cry over Sasuke.

"So, you love him that much? Enough to give him up and let him love who he wants to, live the way that he wants to…and love another yourself?" he asked.

Sakura could only nod, her waist length hair moving with her. Looking at the clock on the wall she stood up, breaking the contact between their hands.

"I have to go, I have another shift at the hospital in the morning."

Leaving, she could only wonder if he had gotten her letter, and if so, would he read it and understand it?

* * *

Before anyone knew it, Valentines Day was here.

Men were busy running in and out of stores getting last minute gifts and buying over-priced flowers.

Others were placing last minute reservations at high priced restaurants. Sakura looked at all of the people running about, carrying flowers chocolates and cards.

Everybody seemed to have somebody, except for her. She looked at her watch, 6:39, damn; there was still another hour before she had to go to the bench.

She decided to not go near the bench in case Sasuke was watching her, she didn't want him to not read the letter and just follow her around and just pretend to have read it. She sighed; today was going to by too slow for her, seriously, could the day go by any slower?

Walking back to her apartment, she decided to read a bit before heading down to the bench that Sasuke had left her on before he had left for sound. Maybe reading a romance novel would calm her nerves and prepare her for what would happen later that night.

* * *

Sasuke stared at the piece of paper; it had been on his mind ever since he had gotten it two days ago.

He knew that that paper had something to do with Sakura and Valentines Day; yet, he did not know how to decode it.

It would be fruitless to ask her about it, she would most likely ignore him or tell him to figure it out himself. Also, he couldn't just follow her around, she would notice and most likely ignore him for some time afterwards.

He looked down at the paper once again, if he could just figure out something about it, then maybe he could decode it, but the bad part was that he felt the strange feeling of running out of time.

**21.19.**

That was the first numbers on the page, could it be a greeting, a place?

A name?

Wait- wait a minute, those numbers reminded him of something. He looked at them again, he knew that he had seen those numbers somewhere and they had been tied to him, yet his memory seemed to fail him.

Sakura, Sasuke, 21.19. Those three together had to give him the answer to decoding this message.

He looked at his clock, 6:58, damn it was almost seven. The need to hurry up and decode it was starting to get to him.

"Wait!" He ran over to his cabinet, opening it up to see all of his scrolls, letter, important document…blab blah blab blah…there it is!

It was an old letter given to him from Sakura; it was from about 8 months ago when she was on a 4 month long mission. She had sent him a letter, and wait he knew that those numbers were on there somewhere….

Ther-wait! It wasn't 21.19. That he had seen somewhere! Sakura had to sign her name on the letter in code just in case somebody had intercepted the letter…she had signed her name using numbers…**8.19.**

That was it! Sakura had substituted the letters of a words using numbers, so if H was 8 and S was 19. Then the first line on the paper is U.S. his initials.

So, as Uchiha Sasuke grabbed a piece of paper from him drawer he looked over to his clock, 7:15, damn time is flying by too fast, he had to hurry up and decode the paper before he is too late.

* * *

Sakura looked down at her watch, 7:15, she still had enough time, and closing her book she stood up and stretched her limbs.

Walking into her closet she picked out a dress of hers, she had bought it for today, hoping that she would have a date for Valentines Day. Setting the blood read dress on her bed, she quickly entered the bathroom, turning the shower on she undressed herself and prepared her self, both mentally and physically for the nights activities.

By the time she got out of the shower and got dressed it was 7:46, she gently put on a light jacket and safely placed a kunai into he jacket, just in case. After locking her apartment door and turning off all of her lights, she was on her way down to the bench.

Gently smiling at the tranquility and silence of the area, Sakura made her way to the bench, wondering if Sasuke had ever decoded the letter.

* * *

Sasuke looked over to his clock, just as the minute hand hit 7:50 he growled, time seemed to be running out and he had only half of the paper decoded.

So far all he had was,

Uchiha Sasuke 

**I love you. **

**If you love me too then please meet me at the**

**Bench at eight p.m. on Valentines Day. **

So far that was all that he had decoded. He knew that time was going to run out before he could finish decoding it. He looked back at his clock 7:52 the letters had said, that gave him 8 minutes to finish decoding and then to get to the bench.

He growled, he didn't have enough time to finish it, yet he knew that he had to hurry up and decode the letter. Something about the last line was pulling him to it.

Okay, 9 is the letter I. So, onto the next number.

He quickly looked down the time to decode the letter was taking longer than he had expected. 7:54, dammit, he wasn't going to make it in time.

As his mind quickly made work of decoding, his eyes widened as he finished it and read the last line.

**I am going to move on it I do not see you. **

**H.S. **

"Shit," was all that he could say.

He looked over to his clock, 7:58, damn it was going to take him at least five minutes to get there, and that is going at his top speed, grabbing the letter and shoving it into his pockets, he ran at full speed out of his door and ran to the bench.

"You better wait for me." He muttered as he jumped the clan gates and ran into town.

* * *

Sakura sighed, he wasn't there yet. She told herself to wait until 8:05, just in case if he was going to be a minute or two late.

Sitting down on the bench she looked down at her watch, 8:06. That was it, she was going to leave. There was no use waiting for him any longer, if he didn't get the letter or if he doesn't care for her like that, then she would move on. She had told herself that, and she was going to follow through with it.

Standing up, she smoothed the wrinkles out of her red dress and began to walk away, in a sense she though, she was doing the same thing that he had done to her years ago.

Walking away.

Although, the sound of harsh breathing behind her stopped her. Her steps halted, she even stopped breathing herself for a second. Part of her wanted to leave, move on and live her life without waiting for a man that was never there, yet the other part wanted her to turn around and see him there. Give him one more chance and let him into her life.

She didn't have to decide on what to do anyways, Sasuke's voice penetrated the silence, "What…the hell do you think you are doing?"

She didn't really know what to say to him, "Moving on, I hope." Was the small quiet confession.

She did not have to turn around to see his smirk; his snort of arrogance was enough to tell her that he doubted that.

She turned around, despite the voice in the back of her mind telling her to just walk away, that he had missed his chance and she had to let him go. She looked him in the eyes, just like always they were unreadable, dark and unreadable and staring straight at her.

She noticed that he had the letter grasped tightly in his hand. She frowned, did he really decode it? Or was he just going to be an asshole?

"Look, if you did not get what the letter said then you are just wasting your time here."

He looked at her, with a look somewhere between amusement and pride. Walking towards her he spoke, "Do really think I am that stupid?" she looked away, she didn't want to be there if he just going to verbally belittle her.

"I already knew that you loved me." She gasped and looked up at him, smirk in place on his handsome face. (That Rhymed!)

He grabbed her hand, putting the letter into her palm. She looked down at her hand now holding the paper, taking it the wrong way.

She thought that he was letting her go, letting her move on. Tears unconsciously rose to her eyes, willing them to not fall she bit her lip and turned around. She didn't even take one step before a hand was on her shoulder.

"What they hell are doing?" his voice shattering the silence that had surrounded them. She looked into his dark and penetrating eyes, shocked to see something more than what had been there before.

"You don't? You don't love me right?" her voice barely above a whisper. He looked into her eyes noting the tears that threatened to fall. He lifted one hand, reluctant to touch her face, yet, he cupped her cheek just as a tear slipped past her eye and he used the pad of his thumb to wipe it away.

She leaned into his touch, unaware of his other hand reaching up to hold her other cheek. She opened her eyes to look into his, hesitantly placing her hands on his chest, they were so close, and she could feel his breath on her face.

Silently pleading with her eyes, she needed an answer from him. A yes, no, anything to quell the thoughts racing in her mind. His eyes were looking over her body, just now seeing the red dress that she was wearing.

The straps going along her shoulders, leading down to a supple amount of cleavage. The dress went down to her knees, her feet covered in her ninja sandals.

Silently he wondered if she was cold.

He looked back into her eyes, seeing her plead, her want. Her teeth were biting her bottom lip in nervousness, his eyes lingered on her lips before looking back into her emerald eyes.

"Do you understand what it would be like?" he whispered. Her eyes widened, before she could say anything, he cut her off.

"I can't be like the other guys. I cannot be what you want me to be. I am not perfect."

He looked straight into her eyes; tears flowed gently down her cheeks, as she comprehended what he had said to her.

"If you can accept what it would be like then…I am willing to give us a chance. But if you can't then it would be best for you to walk away right now and move on."

Sasuke looked into her eyes, he was not going to sugarcoat things. If she truly loved him and wanted to be with him, then she had to accept the fact that things would be different from her being with another man. He didn't want to be with her if she wanted him to be like Naruto or Shikamaru.

"Do you care for me?" came her soft whisper.

He looked into her eyes, and then down her hands, they had come up to hold onto his wrists. Looking back to her eyes once more, he wiped away her tears before answering, "Would I give you this offer if I didn't care for you romantically?"

If possible Sakura's eyes widened even more before she nodded her head and cried even more.

Sasuke let out a small smile and kissed her forehead affectionately.

As the two of them sat down that night on the very same bench that he had left her on so many years ago, he held onto her, forever bonding the two of them together in and endless love.

FIN

* * *

Okay, I really hate my ending. But if you all like it then I think that I can live with it.

Please review my story, also, flamers are accepted and welcomed graciously! Happy Valentines Day!


End file.
